Psychological services in Canberra ACT

Summary of article:
– no dedicated mechanism for reading given it is a fairly recent invention
– hypothesis that reading involves visual perception based on parts of brain that were activated (blood flow studies using fMRI)
– study conducted – evidence gained to support hypothesis where brain sees whole words, converts to pictures hence explaining why reading can occur quickly
– idea of the brain using a visual dictionary in the Visual Word Form Area (VWFA) of the brain, located in the left side of the visual cortex approx behind the left ear [opposite, on the right hand side of the brain is the Fusiform Face area responsible for facial expression which allows humans to recognise faces quickly]
– fMRI study found people responded differently to real, whole words as opposed o nonsense words, or pseudo words such as “haric” (a common test in dyslexia/word recognition screens)
– saw how neurons learned & became “tuned” to new words
– could have implications for learning whole words as opposed to phonetic spelling